Astrobiology is a fairly new subject for
Astronomy, and seems to have gained momentum thanks
to the
Mars missions and with data from the Galileo
Space Probe that shows strong evidence of liquid
water under the icy surface of
Europa.

The
possibility of life else where in the Universe, and
even our own
Solar System, is not something new.
Throughout history there has been questions posed as
to the likely hood of extra-terrestrial
intelligence. The first to have thoughts of
extra-terrestrial intelligence was a Greek
philosopher named Epicurus (342 - 270 B.C.). A Roman
poet named Lucretius (91 - 55 B.C.) wrote a poem
titled De rerum natura that discusses other
worlds. More recently, Christiaan Huygens (1629 -
1695) speculated life to exist on the moon as well
as
Jupiter. The
Huygens probe - part of the
Cassini
spacecraft orbiting
Saturn - is named after Christiaan Huygens.

Because of the potential controversy with the
search of extra-terrestrial intelligence, I have
left the subject of SETI to the
Additional Resources
in this section; however, on a personal note I
strongly believe in the search for life elsewhere,
and I believe it to exist; to be only a matter of
time before we finally discover or detect life
elsewhere.

This section will discuss the latest
discoveries on
Mars as well as the current evidence
to support liquid water on
Europa. Briefly
discussing "extremophiles" - life existing here on
Earth in some very hostile environments and the
possibility of variants of extremophiles on
Europa
and
Titan, the moon of Saturn and the only moon to
host a substantial atmosphere.